A few notes from the front lines of political perception.

At first, a local reader responded to a brief mention in a recent story of mine about the GOP's George Bush problem for candidates in 2008...my mention was to the emerging fired attorney's bruhaha and a reader responded with a cannon telling me I didn't know what I was talking about, "Clinton did it" and just the sort of stale talking points you'd find from a Fox News commentator or the Republican National Committee.

It didn't matter that I had my facts right and that the reader wasn't interested in figuring out what might lay behinds the Bush administrations ineptness. No the problem was me -- and my ilk. In short, "Michael McCord and his ignorant liberal bias ilk" were, well, I'm not sure what but me and my ilk are clearly dangerous.

And then, an Oregon reader, perhaps a hyper sensitive liberal ilk type, responded to my March 25 column about Sen. Sam Brownback, the conservative Republican from Kansas. This critic took me to task for, ah, being a Fox News stooge...which was news to me, my girlfriend and my endless supply of right-wing fans.

Continue reading "Manicean politics" »

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:04 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Regarding the creative and audacious "Big Brother" ad that has the political blogosphere abuzz, I saw this eye-catcher from the SF Chronicle -- "The compelling "Hillary 1984" video recently introduced on YouTube represents "a new era, a new wave of politics ... because it's not about Obama," said Peter Leyden, director of the New Politics Institute, a San Francisco-based think tank on politics and new media. "It's about the end of the broadcast era."

See for yourself at:
http://www.thenewhampshireprimary.com/news/2007_03_20_news_3.html

Continue reading "Orwellian politics" »

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:49 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

In a recent Out on a Limb column elsewhere on this web site, I ventured into the metapolitical universe of Sen. Barack Obama...here's a link to another perspective on the Obama phenomenon -- and the perils of political smooth talk:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=5aYLVJD2X%2B%2BOIj0Dtd6OL2%3D%3D

If the link above doesn't work you can find it at the New Republic online www.tnr.com

Posted by Michael McCord at 12:53 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

John McCain's determination to carry forth the unpopular and, as many foreign policy and military experts are coming to conclude, an unwinnable Iraq War policy of George W. Bush is, it seems to me, an invitation to as spectacular a political suicide as we have seen...I talked to McCain earlier today after he had arrived in Iowa from DC We talked about his upcoming visit to three-day campaign trip to New Hampshire...

Continue reading "McCain the Unrelenting" »

Posted by Michael McCord at 10:03 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)

Talk about night and day: I had the intriguing timing Tuesday (3/13) to interview two presidential candidates Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill, and Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan...their contrasting views on many issues was to be expected but to hear them talk about what to do with the Iraq war reveals yet again the tough slog ahead -- politically, that is, in Washington, D.C.

Continue reading "Obama & Brownback: Different universes" »

Posted by Michael McCord at 11:11 AM| Permalink | Comments (0)

A day after 9 Americans died in combat and the day when hundreds of Shia Iraqis died in a suicide bombing, and Cheney's bulldog was convicted of perjury, and hearings about Walter Reed showed at best remarkable indifference and other hearings showed potential politics at play in the sacking of federal prosecutors, an unattached (so far) NH Republican activist told me...

Continue reading "Romney looking good" »

Posted by Michael McCord at 09:11 PM| Permalink | Comments (0)